ASCII Art from GameFAQs

ASCII Art from GameFAQs collects 124 videogame logos recreated in text from guides published on GameFAQs.

During GameFAQs’ heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s, ASCII logos became a familiar part of FAQs and walkthroughs. Because the guides were built around plain text, authors used letters, numbers and punctuation to recreate game logos, title screens and decorative headers. Some were simple, while others became detailed pieces of text-based illustration.

Over time, the style declined as GameFAQs later introduced formatted guides, often called FFAQs, which evolved into HTML Guides which supported images and richer formatting. As fewer authors produced long plain-text FAQs, the tradition of opening a guide with a large handmade ASCII logo gradually faded.

This book documents that period through 124 examples, preserving a distinct visual language closely tied to GameFAQs and the culture of early online videogame guides.